On angled bounce-off impact of a drop impinging on a flowing soap film

Small drops impinging angularly on thin flowing soap films frequently demonstrate the rare emergence of bulk elastic effects working in-tandem with the more common-place hydrodynamic interactions. Three collision regimes are observable: (a) drop piercing through the film, (b) it coalescing with the flow, and (c) it bouncing off the film surface. During impact, the drop deforms along with a bulk elastic deformation of the film. For impacts that are close-to-tangential, the bounce-off regime predominates. We outline a reduced order analytical framework assuming a deformable drop and a deformable three-dimensional film, and the idealization invokes a phase-based parametric study. Angular inclination of the film and the ratio of post and pre impact drop sizes entail the phase parameters. We also perform experiments with vertically descending droplets impacting against an inclined soap film, flowing under constant pressure head. Model predicted phase domain for bounce-off compares well to our experimental findings. Additionally, the experiments exhibit momentum transfer to the film in the form of shed vortex dipole, along with propagation of free surface waves. On consulting prior published work, we note that for locomotion of water-walking insects using an impulsive action, the momentum distribution to the shed vortices and waves are both significant, taking up respectively 2/3-rd and 1/3-rd of the imparted streamwise momentum. In view of the potentially similar impulse actions, this theory is applied to the bounce-off examples in our experiments, and the resultant shed vortex dipole momenta are compared to the momenta computed from particle imaging velocimetry data. The magnitudes reveal identical order ($10^{-7}$ N$\cdot$s), suggesting that the bounce-off regime can be tapped as a simple analogue for interfacial bio-locomotion relying on impulse reactions

Progress in Materials and Component Development for Advanced Lithium-ion Cells for NASA's Exploration Missions

Vehicles and stand-alone power systems that enable the next generation of human missions to the Moon will require energy storage systems that are safer, lighter, and more compact than current state-of-the- art (SOA) aerospace quality lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. NASA is developing advanced Li-ion cells to enable or enhance the power systems for the Altair Lunar Lander, Extravehicular Activities spacesuit, and rovers and portable utility pallets for Lunar Surface Systems. Advanced, high-performing materials are required to provide component-level performance that can offer the required gains at the integrated cell level. Although there is still a significant amount of work yet to be done, the present state of development activities has resulted in the synthesis of promising materials that approach the ultimate performance goals. This report on interim progress of the development efforts will elaborate on the challenges of the development activities, proposed strategies to overcome technical issues, and present performance of materials and cell components

Off-shell Green functions at one-loop level in Maxwell-Chern-Simons quantum electrodynamics

We derive the off-shell photon propagator and fermion-photon vertex at one-loop level in Maxwell-Chern-Simons quantum electrodynamics in arbitrary covariant gauge, using four-component spinors with parity-even and parity-odd mass terms for both fermions and photons. We present our results using a basis of two, three and four point integrals, some of them not known previously in the literature. These integrals are evaluated in arbitrary space-time dimensions so that we reproduce results derived earlier under certain limits.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, version published in Phys. Rev.

On the energy and baseline optimization to study effects related to the δ-phase (CP-/T-violation) in neutrino oscillations at a neutrino factory

In this paper we discuss the detection of CP- and T-violation effects in the framework of a neutrino factory. We introduce three quantities, which are good discriminants for a non-vanishing complex phase (δ) in the 3 × 3 neutrino mixing matrix: Δδ, ΔCP and ΔT. We find that these three discriminants (in vacuum) all scale with L/Ev, where L is the baseline and Ev the neutrino energy. Matter effects modify the scaling, but these effects are large enough to spoil the sensitivity only for baselines larger than 5000 km. So, in the hypothesis of constant neutrino factory power (i.e., number of muons inversely proportional to muon energy), the sensitivity on the δ-phase is independent of the baseline chosen. Specially interesting is the direct measurement of T-violation from the "wrong-sign" electron channel (i.e., the ΔT discriminant), which involves a comparison of the ve → vμ and vμ → ve oscillation rates. However, the vμ → ve measurement requires magnetic discrimination of the electron charge, experimentally very challenging in a neutrino detector. Since the direction of the electron curvature has to be estimated before the start of the electromagnetic shower, low-energy neutrino beams and hence short baselines, are preferred. In this paper we show, as an example, the exclusion regions in the Δm212-δ plane using the ΔCP and ΔT discriminants for two concrete cases keeping the same L/Ev ratio (730 km/7.5 GeV and 2900 km/30 GeV). We obtain a similar excluded region provided that the electron detection efficiency is ∼20% and the charge confusion 0.1%. The Δm212 compatible with the LMA solar data can be tested with a flux of 5 × 1021 muons. We compare these results with the fit of the visible energy distributions. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

A Summary on Progress in Materials Development for Advanced Lithium-ion Cells for NASA's Exploration Missions

Vehicles and stand-alone power systems that enable the next generation of human missions to the moon will require energy storage systems that are safer, lighter, and more compact than current state-of-the-art (SOA) aerospace quality lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. NASA is developing advanced Li-ion cells to enable or enhance future human missions to Near Earth Objects, such as asteroids, planets, moons, libration points, and orbiting structures. Advanced, high-performing materials are required to provide component-level performance that can offer the required gains at the integrated cell level. Although there is still a significant amount of work yet to be done, the present state of development activities has resulted in the synthesis of promising materials that approach the ultimate performance goals. This paper on interim progress of the development efforts will present performance of materials and cell components and will elaborate on the challenges of the development activities and proposed strategies to overcome technical issues

Chern-Simons and Born-Infeld gravity theories and Maxwell algebras type

Recently was shown that standard odd and even-dimensional General Relativity can be obtained from a $(2n+1)$-dimensional Chern-Simons Lagrangian invariant under the $B_{2n+1}$ algebra and from a $(2n)$-dimensional Born-Infeld Lagrangian invariant under a subalgebra $\cal{L}^{B_{2n+1}}$ respectively. Very Recently, it was shown that the generalized In\"on\"u-Wigner contraction of the generalized AdS-Maxwell algebras provides Maxwell algebras types $\cal{M}_{m}$ which correspond to the so called $B_{m}$ Lie algebras. In this article we report on a simple model that suggests a mechanism by which standard odd-dimensional General Relativity may emerge as a weak coupling constant limit of a $(2p+1)$-dimensional Chern-Simons Lagrangian invariant under the Maxwell algebra type $\cal{M}_{2m+1}$, if and only if $m\geq p$. Similarly, we show that standard even-dimensional General Relativity emerges as a weak coupling constant limit of a $(2p)$-dimensional Born-Infeld type Lagrangian invariant under a subalgebra $\cal{L}^{\cal{M}_{2m}}$ of the Maxwell algebra type, if and only if $m\geq p$. It is shown that when $m<p$ this is not possible for a $(2p+1)$-dimensional Chern-Simons Lagrangian invariant under the $\cal{M}_{2m+1}$ and for a $(2p)$-dimensional Born-Infeld type Lagrangian invariant under $\cal{L}^{\cal{M}_{2m}}$ algebra.Comment: 30 pages, accepted for publication in Eur.Phys.J.C. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1309.006

Even-dimensional General Relativity from Born-Infeld gravity

It is an accepted fact that requiring the Lovelock theory to have the maximun possible number of degree of freedom, fixes the parameters in terms of the gravitational and the cosmological constants. In odd dimensions, the Lagrangian is a Chern-Simons form for the (A)dS group. In even dimensions, the action has a Born-Infeld-like form. Recently was shown that standard odd-dimensional General Relativity can be obtained from Chern-Simons Gravity theory for a certain Lie algebra B. Here we report on a simple model that suggests a mechanism by which standard even-dimensional General Relativity may emerge as a weak coupling constant limit of a Born-Infeld theory for a certain Lie subalgebra of the algebra B. Possible extension to the case of even-dimensional supergravity is briefly discussed

Mixtures of Gaussian distributions under linear dimensionality reduction

High dimensional spaces pose a serious challenge to the learning process. It is a combination of limited number of samples and high dimensions that positions many problems under the "curse of dimensionality", which restricts severely the practical application of density estimation. Many techniques have been proposed in the past to discover embedded, locally-linear manifolds of lower dimensionality, including the mixture of Principal Component Analyzers, the mixture of Probabilistic Principal Component Analyzers and the mixture of Factor Analyzers. In this paper, we present a mixture model for reducing dimensionality based on a linear transformation which is not restricted to be orthogonal. Two methods are proposed for the learning of all the transformations and mixture parameters: the first method is based on an iterative maximum-likelihood approach and the second is based on random transformations and fixed (non iterative) probability functions. For experimental validation, we have used the proposed model for maximum-likelihood classification of five "hard" data sets including data sets from the UCI repository and the authors' own. Moreover, we compared the classification performance of the proposed method with that of other popular classifiers including the mixture of Probabilistic Principal Component Analyzers and the Gaussian mixture model. In all cases but one, the accuracy achieved by the proposed method proved the highest, with increases with respect to the runner-up ranging from 0.2% to 5.2%

The anapole moment in scalar quantum electrodynamics

The anapole moment of a charged scalar particle is studied in a model independent fashion, using the effective Lagrangian technique, as well as radiatively within the context of scalar quantum electrodynamics (SQED). It is shown that this gauge structure is characterized by a non renormalizable interaction, which is radiatively generated at the one--loop. It is found that the resulting anapole moment for off-shell particles, though free of ultraviolet divergences, is gauge dependent and thus it is not a physical observable. We also study some of its kinematical limits. In particular, it is shown that its value comes out to be zero when all particles are on--shell.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur